


You are All the Silence I've Become

by allcanadiangirl (andchimeras)



Category: Everwood
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-22
Updated: 2003-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-08 08:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchimeras/pseuds/allcanadiangirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Really, it was the only thing that could happen." Post-accident, pre-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You are All the Silence I've Become

**Author's Note:**

  * For [researchminion](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=researchminion).



A page echoes through the hospital. Laynie squeezes her eyes tighter shut, then open. She looks up at Amy sitting beside her and she isn't surprised at all.

"Hi," she says, her voice rusty in her own ears.

Amy looks away. "Hey. I didn't mean to wake you, but I was just walking," she points, "that way, I was going to Colin's room, I didn't know if you were asleep, and—"

Laynie frowns. "Why are you talking so much?"

Amy's mouth snaps shut and Laynie wants to apologise. Since, since last week she's been doing this, she's just been saying things and freaking people out and she didn't mean to do it to Amy. Sometimes she can't control her own voice. Since last week.

Amy doesn't say anything. She tucks her hair behind her ear, flexes her fingers on the strap of her purse. She holds everything so tightly, Laynie thinks, her knuckles are always white.

"Your dad here?" Laynie asks quietly instead of voicing that observation.

Amy nods. She bites her bottom lip, then says, "How are you. Do you need anything."

Laynie shakes her head, pulls her legs up onto the plastic seat. "I need to go home," she says, laughing. "I want to go home and sleep in my bed and not think about this." She looks at Amy. "Is that terrible?"

She sees the horror in Amy's eyes as Amy says, "No."

Laynie pushes her forehead into her knees, listening to Amy's denim jacket rustling.

"I've been here for three days," Laynie says slowly. "I've watched him for hours, and he doesn't move. I haven't. I haven't. I haven't spoken to my parents in. I can't even remember. They're here, but. They're, like. Saving. Their words. For him--or something. He just--lays there. And he doesn't _move_."

Her hands close in the air, she wants to grab Colin's shirt and shake him back to life. He was always so stubborn.

Laynie feels her face become heavy, solidified, the tears start trailing sluggishly. She pushes at them, trying to put them back, Amy looks at her and her face dissolves.

Laynie tucks a strand of hair behind Amy's ear and Amy turns like she's falling into the undertow. Laynie wraps her arms around Amy's shoulders, Amy is still wiping her face, she whispers, "I'm sorry," and Laynie shushes her.

Her hand falls to Laynie's shoulder, cupping the curve, her cheek rests there. Laynie looks over the back of Amy's head, she sees him smiling, owning the world. She thinks this is too much, it shouldn't have happened, but really it was the only thing that could happen. She grips Amy tighter.

Laynie strokes her hair. She closes her eyes, turns her face into Laynie's neck. Laynie can smell the hospital around them, she thinks the scent will probably cling to Colin's skin forever. They breathe it in.

 

 

The phone's ring echoes through the house. Amy sits up, a magazine falling unread from her chest. She grabs at the cordless on her nightstand, turning it on and jamming it to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hi," Laynie says.

Amy closes her eyes and rakes her free hand through her hair, pulling at tangles, starting over. "Hi," she says wearily. It has become less and less of a comfort to talk to Laynie, and Amy just wants to be alone today.

"So," Laynie says slowly. "This is a month."

"Yeah," Amy says. She pulls her hair over her shoulder roughly. She thinks of Laynie's short hair, its crispness under her cheek. Colin's hair was always soft.

"I," Laynie says. She falls silent.

Amy remembers when they were nine, they went as Betty and Veronica for Hallowe'en. Their long long hair bound up and down accordingly. Amy borrowed some of Laynie's scuffed jeans and a t-ball jersey, lent Laynie her favourite dress.

Colin was Batman that year, Bright was a ghost.

"Do you remember," Amy says.

"What?" Laynie says after a moment.

"Nothing," Amy says.

Amy can hear Laynie shuffling something. Her hands, her feet, maybe just her cheek against the receiver. Amy twists a length of hair around her finger. Amy loved these silences with Colin. Like sitting in the park, holding hands. Just together.

With Laynie it is awkward and uncertain. Amy's taken so much comfort in Laynie the last month, spoken to her almost every day, been calmed by the similar shape of Laynie's eyes, the similar grin, the similar hands and neck. It's become less comforting lately.

Laynie is not Colin. Amy knows this, and it's concrete in her heart now. Falling asleep on Laynie's stomach, Dawson's Creek fading into warmth and silence, is not the same as it was with Colin.

"When did you cut your hair?" Amy says abruptly.

"July the first," Laynie says. She doesn't sound confused by the question.

"Why?" Amy says.

"I wanted to," Laynie says. "What does it matter."

Amy shakes her head, looks at the split ends tangled around her finger. "It doesn't really, I guess."

"Are you," Laynie stops.

"What?" Amy says.

"Nothing," Laynie says.

A door downstairs slams and Amy hears Bright's quick and heavy steps up the stairs.

"I have to go," she says. She wants to ask Bright if he has any team photos from last year, to put on Colin's bedside table.

"Okay," Laynie says.

Laynie hangs up. The sharp jangling noise of the disconnection hurts Amy's ear.

 

End.


End file.
